


Depressing

by littlemiss_m



Series: HOME, a series [9]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Depression, Gen, I promise, No Character Death, Overdosing, POV suicidal person, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, as in this gets pretty far into prompto's head, but it could be read that way if you don't wait for the next piece where he is alive, technically this COULD be character death but it's not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-19
Updated: 2018-04-19
Packaged: 2019-04-25 03:43:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14370183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlemiss_m/pseuds/littlemiss_m
Summary: Prompto finds his rock bottom.





	Depressing

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during Prompto and Noctis' third year of high school, two or three weeks after the previous piece, Confessing II.

Prompto's sixteenth birthday comes but doesn't go. Objectively, it's the best birthday he's had since his mom's death; he's showered in presents and balloons and Ignis' food, surrounded by people who keep on telling him how important and loved he is. Iris slams a slice of cake to his face. Noctis hands him a stack of IOU's, beginning with extra fifteen minutes of playtime when they're gaming together, and ending with three pairs of tickets to the Insomnia Zoo.

It's a good birthday, all in all, but when everything is over and the night begins to roll in, Prompto finds himself choking back sobs as he scrubs the last remnants of buttercream icing from his hair. He's so _exhausted_ , somehow, never mind that he's done nothing tiring the entire day. He didn't even go to school, but then again he hasn't been to school in almost three weeks now. Cor and Clarus look at him with pinched expressions and dark eyes, so Prompto puts on his best smile and does some of the homework quickly piling up on his desk, and they leave him be, mostly.

There have been talks. About the hospital – the private clinic they went to, the tour through the place, Prompto clinging to Cor's shirt in terror – but also about school. All of sudden, Prompto can't _bear_ the thought of standing inside Insomnia High and the blood-splattered hallways, so they suggest a change of schools, never mind he's practically flunking out already. They suggest homeschooling and tutoring, more therapy, and again, the hospital.

Prompto knows he's running out of time. Cor and Clarus won't let him dwell like this much longer, won't let him waste away, but what they want from him is just too much to offer. It's getting harder and harder to get out of bed every morning, never mind actually dragging himself out of this hole he's dug for himself. This is the easy thing, this pain, this numbness, this soul-consuming nothingness. Recovery is an impossibility but he tries to try anyways, swallowing pills and talking out his feelings and scribbling down short sentences in his diary.

It's been a good birthday but Prompto still sobs on the floor of his shower, boiling-hot water strumming against his skin and keeping him warm when all he feels is the cold of the approaching winter. He should dry off and go to bed but he lacks the energy required, so he doesn't. He sits on the floor under the spray and cries until he can't cry anymore, until the sky has gone dark and starry, until his lungs burn for air instead of the fuzzy steam filling the room.

He gets dressed, takes his pills, goes to bed.

Sleep doesn't come for him.

Prompto rests sprawled on his bed, barely able to breathe through the squeeze of his ribcage. He wants to die, wants to hurt, wants to feel something – _anything_ – other than this. The knowledge of a razor blade hidden under his mattress burns in his mind, demands all his muddled attention and focus. It calls for him with the promise of relief – pain and blood and eternal sleep – but Prompto resists it, turns around and around in a desperate attempt to chase away the call of death.

He's supposed to get help. His desk is full of pamphlets and self-help sheets and grudgingly made promises all saying this is what he must do: talk to someone, go to someone, call someone. Gladio sleeps down the hall, but Iris' room is between theirs and Prompto is so irrationally afraid of waking her up, of showing her exactly what he's become; she's still a _baby_ , too young to know things like depression and suicide, yet here he is, teaching her those exact lessons. So he can't go to Gladio because of Iris, and he can't go to Clarus either because he'd still have to walk down the same hallway to get to him.

He could – should – call someone, Prompto thinks, almost hysteric in his pain. Cor would answer without a moment's hesitation, and Noctis has taken to keeping his personal phone on during the nights just for him. He has Ignis, too, and several crisis hotlines saved in his contact lists, from generic but reputable numbers to the Citadel line and even the hospital.

They're all so far away, though, across the city, and so Prompto doesn't pick up his phone from where it sits on his nightstand. He's not actively dying, after all, even if he feels like he was. Noctis has school and Ignis has Noctis and the hotlines are too impersonal. He doesn't need them. He'll be fine.

Gritting his teeth together, Prompto rolls over and curls up in a ball under the covers. He closes his eyes, tries his best to catch the elusive sleep. He fails, and a moment later, he reaches for his phone with a frustrated cry.

**Prompto (2:47 a.m.):** can you come please

He almost doesn't send the text. He rewrites it several times (don't do it don't do it don't do it) before forcing himself to tap the little arrow with a quick swipe of his thump. The time it takes for Clarus to show up is simultaneously a minute and an hour, yet the screen of Prompto's phone claims it an exact three minutes. For a moment, Clarus stands in the doorway, eyes wide and mouth gasping for breath, but then he rushes over to the bed to examine Prompto's arms in the dim light of the bedside lamp.

Prompto doesn't resist this part. It's become his life, now, someone or other always wanting to see the skin of his arms bare and – hopefully – unbloodied. They trust him with little and believe him even less.

” _Help me_ ,” Prompto sobs. He tugs one arm free and wipes a sleeve against his snotty nose. Clarus sits down on the edge of the bed and gathers him in his arms, rocking and rubbing and sighing so deep, so long, that Prompto almost laughs through the fat tears rolling down his face.

There's very little Clarus can say except the one thing Prompto doesn't want to hear. ”Oh, Prompto,” he tries anyways, quiet and resigned. The silence that follows is long and only broken by Prompto's cries. ”I think it's time we called the clinic, son.”

”No!” Prompto shouts. He tries to pull away but Clarus won't let him escape so easily.

Clarus sighs, again, and tucks his chin against the top of Prompto's head. ”I know, I know, you don't want to,” he murmurs, ”but this isn't working, Prompto. You need more help than what we can offer.”

”N-n-n-no,” Prompto stutters, ”you just – you just want to put me away! You'll leave me!”

The soft hushing isn't enough to drown out his sobs. ”You'll always have a home with us, son. You'll always be welcome here, no matter what. But right now, Prompto, right now – I don't think home's the best place for you.”

Prompto can only cry. He knows – logically, objectively – that Clarus is speaking the truth but he's just so damn _afraid_ on top of all the other hurt in him. The tour at the clinic did very little to assuage his fears, gently smiling nurses and doctors in comfy jeans explaining to him the workings of the inpatient program. They'd want him to talk and mingle and disregard his own privacy, and that's almost as scary as the sudden fear of abandonment.

”It's getting a bit late,” Clarus speaks when Prompto can't. ”Why won't we finish this conversation in the morning after a couple hours of sleep, hm?”

It's almost too reasonable. ”Can't,” Prompto croaks.

”Can't sleep, do you mean?” Prompto nods his head. ”Okay. Did you take all your meds?”

He didn't and Clarus knows it. He's cycled through several kinds of medications, from anti-depressants supposed to make him sleep better and anti-anxiety meds meant to keep him calm, but he keeps on getting worse faster than the doctor can prescribe him anything. He doesn't really mind the anti-depressants, but the Pill – in capital letters, because he hates it so – that one is a problem. At first, he was prescribed it because of his panic attacks, but now it's because of _everything_ and he's meant to be taking it at least semi-regularly instead of just occasionally, and he's not okay with that. He doesn't like how the Pill makes him feel, hazy and uncoordinated, but he loathes the way the effects last well into the next day, leaving him drowsy and pliant for hours.

The prescription label reads _benzodiazepine_ and all Prompto knows about those kinds of drugs is that they're addictive. He thinks about his dad drinking his life away and skips the pill, night after night.

”Prompto.” Clarus sounds disappointed. Prompto isn't sure if he's ever heard the tone before. ”You _need_ to take your medications.”

”I don't _like_ it,” Prompto grumbles petulantly. The hurt and the fears are quickly giving way to anger.

” _Prompto_.”

”Ugh, fine!”

He wrestles himself free of Clarus' hold and stomps away to the bathroom, fuming as he does. Clarus doesn't follow him which is good, because Prompto is about five seconds away from a shouting match he'd inevitably lose.

Under the bright lights of the bathroom, his anger dies and turns into frustration. He fucking hates this, hates everything in this world (he wants to die), hates the Pill and the depression and the black hole where his heart used to be. He hates that he can hear the creak of his bedside drawer being pulled open (the potion is gone because he wants to die but knows he can't), hates that his privacy is all but gone now.

Most of all, he hates the never-ending commentary running in his mind no matter what he thinks about. _I want to die_ , it says, _I want to die, I want to di-i-i-i-e, I WANT TO DIE_. Always there, never silent.

The glass of water gets knocked down from his hand and breaks in the sink. Prompto startles, turns to look at Clarus in confusion, unable to understand the expression of utter hurt and heartbreak staring back at him. It's not until he turns to look at the sink, his hands, the orange medicine bottle, that he starts to understand. He still has a pill – the Pill – in his hand but the more he thinks about it, the surer he is that he already took one; but the plastic container is almost empty, and it definitely shouldn't be anywhere damn near finished.

”Prompto,” Clarus says, in a voice so thin and shaky it might as well be non-existant. ”I'm going to call that ambulance now.”

Prompto sways on his feet until Clarus takes hold of his shoulders and steers him to sit on the toilet lid. He tries to count the mouthfuls of water it takes to fill a glass to see if he can somehow match the number with the missing pills, but his body lists to the side and Clarus has to help him down to the floor. He sits there, vaguely aware of footsteps and a one-sided conversation, sits on the floor between the toilet seat and the glass partition, sits and thinks about how he wants to die, needs to die, could maybe possibly _probably_ die from this–

Thick fingers force themselves down his throat and Prompto begins crying, pleading. Please, Gods, he begs while his body convulses in Clarus' hold, _please_ let this be the worst of it. _Please_ , Shiva, Ifrit, let this be the end. _Please_ , Bahamut, Ramuh, _anyone_ listening, _please_ let this be the worst he ever gets, _please_ let this pain be over, _please, anyone_ , please let this be his rock bottom–

**Author's Note:**

> This is it this is the worst this story gets!! I know I've been promising that happily-ever-after for weeks now, but I swear the next piece is when things REALLY start to get better for Prompto.
> 
> (I know the ending is pretty open for interpretation but Prompto just blacks out and I couldn't really continue from there.)


End file.
